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The aim of this chapter is to investigate the context dependence of the implications of telework for work–family conflict. It examines whether and how the implications of telework for strain-based and time-based work–family conflict depend on work–family-supportive and high-demand workplace cultures. Based on a sample of 4,898 employees derived from a unique linked employer–employee study involving large organizations in different industries in Germany, multilevel fixed-effects regressions were estimated.

The results show that telework is associated with perceived higher levels of both time-based and strain-based work–family conflict, and that this is partly related to overtime work involved in telework. However, teleworkers experience higher levels of work–family conflict if they perceive their workplace culture to be highly demanding, and lower levels if supervisor work–family support is readily available.

Future research is required to investigate how the conclusions from this research vary between heterogonous employees and how work–family-supportive and high-demand workplace cultures interrelate in their implications on the use of telework for work–family conflict.

The findings show how important it is to implement telework in a way that not only accommodates employers’ interest in flexibilization, but that it also makes it possible to reconcile work with a family life that involves high levels of responsibility.

This is the first study which examines whether telework is either a resource that reduces or a demand that promotes work–family conflict by focusing on whether this depends on perceived workplace culture.

Changing work/family dynamics and economic developments have made it more likely that an employee might work with a family member or spouse. Such working relationships offer a unique perspective by which to understand the work/family interface; however, relatively little research has explored the implications of working with family for employee stress and well-being. In this chapter, we review the existing research concerning stress associated with working with family. We integrate this research into broader demand/resource perspectives on employee stress and well-being, highlighting the manner in which working with family provides unique demands and resources through differences in work–family linking mechanisms. We conclude with suggestions for future research that might enhance our understanding of the work/family interface by considering the dynamics of working with family.

As more companies and employees become involved in telecommuting, researchers and managers will need to understand the effects of this relatively new working arrangement on the work perceptions and behaviors of the individual telecommuter. The extant empirical literature provides mixed results and is limited by a lack of theory; consequently, neither researchers nor managers can rely on this literature for clear direction on how telecommuting will likely affect individual telecommuters. There is a critical need for theoretical frameworks to guide research on how telecommuting may affect the telecommuter’s job perceptions, working relations, and work outcomes. We present a multi-dimensional framework of telecommuting design, and focus on how telecommuting design may affect the telecommuter’s work environment and outcomes through its effects on the social system of the telecommuter, autonomy and self-management opportunities and requirements, and role boundaries, particularly in terms of the work and non-work interface. Our goal is to provide a framework to assist managers and researchers in systematically addressing questions of how to design telecommuting arrangements to maximize their potential benefits while minimizing their potential drawbacks.

In this chapter, we review the literature on the relationship of work–family conflict with health outcomes and well-being. We discuss the meaning of work–family conflict and then present a theoretical model that depicts the psychological process by which work–family conflict affects negative emotions, dissatisfaction with life and its component roles, health-related behavior, and physical health. We conclude with suggestions regarding the development of a future research agenda.

We extend emotional-labor research by developing a time-based theory of the effects of emotion regulation in emotional-labor performance. Drawing on Gross's (1998a) process model, we argue that antecedent- and response-focused regulatory styles can be used to make differential predictions about outcomes such as performance, health, and antisocial behavior and that these effects differ in shorter- and longer-time windows. We discuss the theoretical implications and address the strengths and limitations of our approach.

Family and work life have always been interdependent, because the increased employment of mothers, rising family hours of work, today’s service-intensive globalizing economy, and the trend toward work long hours for some and inadequate family income for the others have rendered this interdependence both more visible and more problematic. The extent to which an individual carries out their duties and responsibilities at work and home varies from one person to the other and how they balance up their roles and duties can be determined by a number of factors which include job-related factors, family-related factors, and individual factors.

A total of 255 married participants were randomly selected from the private sector, which includes banks, insurance companies, and telecommunication firms, in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria. Data was elicited through the use of questionnaires as well as interview.

Findings from the chi-squared analysis used for this study showed that there is a significant relationship between work obligation and family commitment among couples in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

One limitation of this study was that it was concentrated only on workers in the private sector. It was also limited by the methods of carrying out the research. The study emphasizes proper planning and time management, effective work schedule as well as an analysis of factors affecting work performance particularly, family duties, and how these affect the level of performance of individuals in their respective places of work.

This paper uses a representative sample of U.S. workers to examine how self-employment may reduce work-life conflict. We find that self-employment prevents work from interfering with life (WIL), especially among women, but it heightens the tendency for life to interfere with work (LIW). We show that self-employment is connected to WIL and LIW by different causal mechanisms. The self-employed experience less WIL because they have more autonomy and control over the duration and timing of work. Working at home is the most important reason the self-employed experience more LIW than wage and salary workers.

The goal of this chapter is to present new ways of conceptualizing family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), and to present a multilevel model reviewing variables that are linked to this construct. We begin the chapter with an overview of the U.S. labor market's rising work–family demands, followed by our multilevel conceptual model of the pathways between FSSB and health, safety, work, and family outcomes for employees. A detailed discussion of the critical role of FSSB is then provided, followed by a discussion of the outcome relationships for employees. We then present our work on the conceptual development of FSSB, drawing from the literature and from focus group data. We end the chapter with a discussion of the practical implications related to our model and conceptual development of FSSB, as well as a discussion of implications for future research.

The centrality of time to the quality and experience of our lives has led scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider its social origins, including temporal differences among social collectives. Consistent across their accounts is the acknowledgment that time is co-constructed by people via their communicative interactions and formalized through the use of symbols. The goal of this chapter is to build on these extant socio-historical accounts – which explain temporal commodification, construction, and compression in Western, industrialized organizations – to offer a perspective that is grounded in communication and premised on human agency. Specifically, it takes a chronemic approach to interrogating time in the workplace, exploring how time is a symbolic construction emergent through human interaction. It examines McGrath and Kelly's (1986) model of social entrainment as relevant to the interactional bases of time, and utilizes it and structuration theory to consider the mediation and interpenetration of four oft-cited practices in the emergence of a Westernized time orientation: industrial capitalism, the Protestant work ethic, the mechanized clock, and standardized time zones. Surrounded by contemporary workplace discussions on managing the demands of personal–professional times, this analysis employs themes of temporal commodification, construction, and compression to explore the influence of these socio-historical developments in shaping norms about the time and timing of work.